gas fireplace maint & Duct clearner

Anyone ever use a duct cleaner to come out and clean your dryer vent and other venting in your house? How often is this suppose to be done and what is approx. cost? Who have you used?

I was also looking at somewhere online that said your gas fireplace should be inspected yearly. Hmmm...has anyone had this done either?

 

There was a very recent post about duct cleaning. You may want to do a search. As for the dryer vent - I *think* they did that when they came out to clean our ducts as part of the service. Normally we us a leaf blower clean the dryer vent.

Have never had our fireplace inspected either - oops!

 

I have a 3 level van meter townhome. The gas bill for nov was abt 145. Which I thought was reasonable for winter but I installed programable thermostat anyway. So for the month of December it was 63 from 10.30 PM- 6.30 AM, 72 from 6.31 - 8.30 AM , 62 from 8.31AM - 6.30 PM, 72 from 6.31 PM - 10.30PM.
I still got a whopping 245.00 bill for december. Now before you scream consider that this is one of the smallest townhome, sandwitched on either side.
I am wondering if my home is not properly insulated. Does any townhome owner hae somilar experience ?

 

Our bill doubled and we left our home cooler. We're in a M&S TH! I know our insulation stinks, but think it's just the increased pricing!

 

we had a company do the dryer vent when we moved in to our house... cost us $80 bucks. The tools he used looked pretty simple and I've since found them on the internet for ~$35 (its basically a series of 3 foot flexible tubes that attach to a 4" round brush on one end and a drill on the other). Its definately a DIY job.

 

I take a look at my gas fireplaces and do a little maintance on them once a year. Basically just cleaning them out. I use "canned air" and blow out the dust, whip it down and check the fittings. That's about it. I also turn off the feeder valve during the summer.

There is no need to check the flue as gas does not create the same problems as wood burning fireplaces do. That being cresote build up. Cresote can be a fire hazard. Cleaning the flue and chimney is not a DIY job, at least in my opinion.